The world is ugly, but you're beautiful to me
by Darrien Criss the Domestic
Summary: "Rachel Berry" A sweet name to match a sweet girl. But if everyone else can see what shes worth, then why can't she? Told from the POV of Quinn. One shot


I sit in my room one cold September night and let tears fall freely from my eyes. Why? I ask myself. Why did she do it? I made her feel like the princess she is and then it all goes to waste. All the compliments, the nights spent wiping her tears, the times I risked my piece of mind just to make sure she was breathing: just gone. I had spent two years building this girl up...

Could one person really send it all spiraling down?

Is that even possible? To destroy every thing that you had worked for because one person doesn't appreciate it?

I walk across my bedroom and to the black laptop with pink stickers reading "Q&R 4Ever" on the front right above the brand name. I run my fingers over the letters and cry a little harder. I remember when she came over to my house with the little stickers and she was so excited to put her name on something that belonged to me. It was like a kid in a candy store.

As I open the computer and type in my password (iloveyouBerrymuch) I smile at the picture of Rachel in New York with her dads. She had a genuine smile on her face: something that took a long time for me to conjure up. I go into my photo album and look at the pictures from happier days: 9th grade.

Rachel had always caught my eye from the moment i saw her. She had a sort of a genuine beauty that I had never seen on even the prettiest of girls. They all looked as if they had to work for their looks, while she just woke up that way.

We were seated next to each other in our homeroom class. She was obviously nervous, her pink painted fingernails almost completely hidden by her long sweater. It was hot, why was she wearing a sweater? I was caught staring at her and when i looked up to meet her eyes i was completely flustered.

"I-I'm sorry. I just-"

"Its okay. I'm used to the stares."

I knew i shouldn't have asked but I couldn't help it.

"If you don't mind me asking, why do people stare?"

She looked up at me with wide eyes and whatever fear was their immediately was pushed to the back of her mind.

"My face structure. My prominent nose tends to draw a lot of... negative attention."

"I think you're pretty."

She bit her lip and smiled.

I could never get that day out of my head. Every little compliment made her bite her lip in the most adorable way possible.

We were best friends for that whole year. We kissed one night at her place when we were drunk, and safe to say everything changed after that. She stopped self harming, she started having a sense of self worth, and miraculously i was falling in love with her more and more with each passing day.

The summer before sophomore year i told her. It was a late night "I'm bored lets find out MORE about each other" text.

"Rach, I know I'm your best friend but I want you to know that i think i might be in love with you."

She didn't reply. For one whole hour she didn't reply and it was one of the most nerve-racking moments of my life.

"You have no idea how long I've been waiting for one of us to say these words. I've loved you since he moment i saw you."

And that was history.

The next day she came over and we spent a whole week acting like a newly wed couple: smiling at each other when we wake up, admiring the little thins that make each other so amazing, and lots and lots of snuggling.

We came out to our parents the wee before school an my mom wasn't exactly too thrilled, but she was okay. Rachel's dads started treating me as if I were their own daughter and Rachel and I became public.

It was that first "I'm gay" that sent her spiraling back to her old ways.

She became a prisoner of her own thoughts. It was getting colder outside, so she had excuses to wear her sweaters, but no matter how many "Im just cold" lines she fed me I never believed her. I had been around her long enough to know that was a lie.

One night I saw them. There were at least 7 on her wrists and probably three times that amount on her arm.

I just looked at her. "Why?" I asked her.

"They wont stop, Quinn. The names, and the looks, and the teasing..."

I shook my head and took her in my arms. We cried that night, and every day after that I was determined to make sure that she felt wanted and needed.

But one chilly day in October, a little birdie named Finn destroyed all of my hard work.

I never knew exactly what happened that day at school, but i remember hearing that Finn approached her and tried to kiss her, Rachel tried to push him off, and things were said that can never be taken back.

Rachel was discovered by her dad, Hiram. He says that she overdosed on a cocktail of muscle relaxers and strong sleep aids. He called me in a hysterical mess and and i called for my mom in the same state. "She's gone mom! Rachel's gone she's dead!"

i cant even begin to process, what it must have been like to find her like that.

Still.

No pulse.

Not smiling or singing or laughing.

Dead.

I shake my head at the thought and curl up into my bed, making sure my body doesnt wander over to "her side."

As I drift off to sleep, I can hear my voice in my head singing her song.

_The world is ugly, _  
_But you're beautiful to me_  
_Are you thinking of me?_  
_Are you thinking of him? _  
_The world is ugly_

_And you wanted me to go._  
_I just wanted you to know_

_That the world is ugly, _  
_But you're beautiful to me._


End file.
